Microsoft has recently released an xml tool, strangely enough its not called ‘Windows Live XML Notepad 2006’. It is a pretty useful application if your needing a lightweight xml editor and don’t wish to use notepad2 etc.

If your getting a bookmarks.html does not appear to be a valid firefox document. when using “Firefox To IE7” in Windows Vista RC1 or newer its due to the File IO Permissions and UAC. To fix this right click FireFox To IE7.exe and select Run as Administrator and everything should now work.

When you plan on working with any Windows Live technology, the best place to stop first is dev.live.com. There is a very nice step by step tutorial located here that will show you how to make a Windows Live Gadget step by step with code samples.

Microsoft has released SP1 for Visual Studio .Net 2003. If you’re developing .Net 1.1 applications then I highly recommend installing vs2003 SP1 now.

Bruce Williams has taken the time to write up a three part tutorial with pictures on how to create and deploy a basic gadget using ActiveX and C++. You would want to use ActiveX in your gadget to access anything that’s not currently implemented in the gadget API’s.